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The Science of Seduction	By : aineko Category: S through Z > Sherlock (BBC) > Sherlock (BBC) Views: 4041 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
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John cautiously opened the door to the flat. Nothing. Not even the faint sound of snoring from the sofa. It was as if nobody was home.
How disappointing was that!?
After waking up early - no hope of sleeping in, not after last night - he'd lain in bed for nearly an hour, staring at the ceiling and torturing himself over how to handle the situation. What to do. What to say. What not to do or say. Whether or not he should even acknowledge that anything at all had happened. Regarding the accidental nudity in the hallway, that was. The rest... well, that was something John fully intended to take to the grave with him.
Eventually he'd given up on making sense of his tangled thoughts and gotten out of bed. He'd showered and dressed, and then decided he might as well go do a little shopping. Get out of the flat and hopefully clear his head a little. It had actually helped, he thought. Given him at least a glimmer of an idea regarding how to address the issue if Sherlock should happen to bring it up.
And now, as he lugged his shopping bag up the stairs and opened the door – nothing.
Not even a casual greeting.
Not that he'd normally expect to get one of those. Not from Sherlock.
But a little acknowledgement would have been nice.

He carried the bag through to the kitchen. Set it on the counter. Opened the fridge. No heads in there, not today, but a couple of containers John immediately decided not to inspect too closely. Instead he focused on finding room for the groceries. Milk – in the door shelf. Eggs – top shelf. That was where the single bottle of wine went too. Vegetables...
He hesitated before piling them next to the eggs. Shouldn't really be stored at the top, he thought. But considering the fact that Sherlock's 'experiments' might drip – well, so far that hadn't happened, but there was a first time for everything -
“John.”
He almost jumped. Turned to see his flatmate, wrapped in a sheet. Again. “Tea would be nice.” Sherlock turned and disappeared out of view. John stared after him, frozen. After a minute or so he heard the shower being turned on.
The bastard, the utter utter bastard, had just gone off to take a shower.
Just like that. As if nothing had happened. Then again, Sherlock might simply not care. The man might not have experienced any discomfort or embarrassment at all at last night's incident. In fact, knowing his flatmate, probably not.
Which would mean that if it was a problem it was John's alone. And John was beginning to think it might well be a problem. Going out had cleared his mind, but seeing Sherlock had messed it right up again. This could get truly bad.
He had to fix this. Nip it in the bud. If he could.
But of course he could. It wasn't as if he was gay, after all. It wasn't as if he was attracted. It wasn't even as if he was curious. Common sense told him that getting past this shouldn't be a problem at all.
He ignored the voice of experience that tried to tell him that where Sherlock was concerned, common sense usually got it wrong.

Of course he made the tea. It was what he'd normally do, after all. And today of all days needed to be normal. Step One in the bud-nipping process. He left Sherlock's mug on the dining table, and sat himself down in his armchair with his own. Heavy on the sugar today.
He had the laptop open, perusing the list of comments left for his last blog entry, when he heard footsteps. He forced himself to stare at the screen. As if he could focus on reading right now. His ears tracked Sherlock – padding across the floor, picking up the mug left for him, taking a first sip – while he tried to forecast Sherlock's first words, trying to project an I-don't-really-care signal. One his flatmate, of course, ignored. If he was even aware of it in the first place.
“You're not typing,” he observed instead.
“No, I'm not,” John agreed. “I'm reading people's comments.”
“Oh.” He sensed Sherlock coming to a standstill and kept quiet himself while he counted inside his head. “Any good?” Sherlock went on after fifteen seconds.
“Mm-hm.” He pretended to check. “Here's one, says you ought to wear the deerstalker more often in public.”
He heard Sherlock stifle a groan and flop himself down onto the sofa. "Dull!”

In truth Sherlock was feeling a little... odd.
There was no specific reason he could put his finger on, no concrete symptom of any kind. He felt slightly cold, but not constantly, more in... waves. And slightly achy. That seemed the best way to describe it. Though he wasn't sure. He found it difficult to focus one hundred per cent on the matter. Which was strange, as it hardly required even a fraction of his brain capacity.
Well, never mind. Tea would help, no doubt. Tea and John. Tea to keep him warm, John to keep him distracted. Yes, that was the ticket. Tea and John. Between the two there was no ill in the world that couldn't be cured.
And so he drank his tea and watched his flatmate. John seemed slightly... off today. His outward behaviour was exactly as usual – perhaps too exactly so. As if something had happened that he expressly didn't want Sherlock to know about.
He wondered why. After all, John ought to know by now that trying to keep a secret from his flatmate was futile. And John wasn't normally secretive, anyway. Of course there were rare occasions when he tried to withhold information 'for Sherlock's own good', usually something to do with Mycroft. Sherlock always spotted it, of course, even if he didn't always let on that he had.
This wasn't one of those times, though. No, this was different, John was different. Sherlock's brain seemed oddly reluctant to address the issue; he had to give it a stern talking-to before it ground into action, considering possibilities and discarding one after another, until...
Could it have anything to do with last night?
It didn't make sense to think that it should be so. True, he had been... exposed. Full frontal, he believed they called it. So had John, for that matter. But he couldn't see why that should be an issue. John, after all, was a doctor, he had studied anatomy, he must be familiar with the human form. Even if he hadn't studied this particular human form, Sherlock couldn't for the life of him see why that should make any difference. Male was male, it followed a certain basic template and, although he didn't pay more attention to his body than was strictly necessary, he was familiar enough with his own physique to know that it didn't significantly deviate from the norm. Surely John, with his training an experience, should be aware of that same fact. And he wouldn't be attracted on a personal level, he had stated more than once that he wasn't sexually inclined towards men, and none of his actions, as far as Sherlock had seen, indicated otherwise.
So why would he be bothered?
Intriguing...

“John?”
“Mm-hm.” John didn't even look up but kept looking at the screen.
“Should I bother getting dressed?”
That caught his attention. He refused to look at his flatmate, but stared straight ahead instead. “Sherlock, why the hell do you even have to ask that question!?”
“If there's no case on, I fail to see the point.”
“Sherlock," John managed in a tight voice, "people dress. It's what people do. I'm dressed, in case you hadn't noticed.”
“You've been down the shops.” Sherlock drank some more tea.
John didn't even bother to ask how Sherlock knew that. He stared back at the screen, re-reading The Walking-Stick Mystery. That had been quite an adventure, he thought.
“You're not scrolling,” Sherlock noticed out loud.
“Wh-what?”
“Not. Scrolling. If you were reading you'd be scrolling. So what are you doing?”
“None of your bloody business,” John snapped.
“You're my business.”
John quickly shut his laptop, hoping the action would distract Sherlock so he didn't notice the sudden flush in his cheeks. “I'm trying,” he said in exasperation. “to find a way of getting it into my flatmate's head that people dress, they don't just lounge around in the bedlinen all day. Whether or not they've got to go out. It's what's called normal.”
"Normal is boring.” Sherlock finished his tea and flopped himself down onto the sofa, propping his feet up on the armrest.
"So be boring for once," John told him. "You never know, you might like it."
"Fine," Sherlock snapped, jumped back up and stalked off. He returned a few minutes later, dressed for a day in; t-shirt and pajama bottoms under his favourite dressing gown. Entering he shot a look of annoyance in John's direction; John sent back a bland pair of raised eyebrows. Sighing heavily, Sherlock threw himself on the sofa again.
John realized he was staring and quickly returned his attention to his laptop. Except he didn't, not really.

Sherlock was tired. He didn't know why, it wasn't something he was accustomed to, certainly not at this hour. He had slept for several hours longer than was his habit last night, and yet he found it a challenge to keep his eyes open. Eventually he gave up the struggle.
He listened hard, tracking John by sound alone. It was, he thought, good practice in any case; and besides, John tended to reveal more of himself when he thought himself unobserved.
Sherlock heard him set down the laptop and get up. The slightest of scraping noises, porcelain against varnish, told him John had picked up his tea mug, the direction of his footsteps said kitchen. Water was poured into a container, most likely the kettle. Bread, a single slice, into the toaster, press lever down. The fridge was opened.
And a long silence followed.
Sherlock frowned. He hadn't heard the fridge door shut, so presumably it remained open. Didn't John realize the validity of his experiments depended on maintaining a stable environment? Opening and then closing a fridge door was part of the natural routine, but leaving it open for an extended period of time would ruin things.
“Any longer and I'll have to start over,” he said loudly.
The fridge door closed with a slight rattle; John had slammed it. Rapid footsteps in the direction of the sofa. Stopping two feet away.
“What,” John asked in a strained voice, “do you mean by that?”
“My experiments.” He deliberately didn't open his eyes. Lazy eyelids aside, it was more fun this way. “They'll be ruined if you disturb the temperature by leaving the fridge open. Then I'd have to start over.”
"Sherlock, about your 'experiments'..." John paused. "Did they by any chance involve my orange marmalade?"
Sherlock opened his eyes and looked sideways at his flatmate. John looked more than a little annoyed. Redirecting his gaze towards the ceiling Sherlock simply said, "It comprises the perfect combination of low pH value and high sugar content. You don't mind, do you?"
"Mind? Of course I mind!" John retorted, agitated. "We've had this conversation before, Sherlock! You do not nick my stuff for your experiments!"
"Needed it..." Sherlock's voice tailed off. He forgot the rest of his reasoning. He'd needed the marmalade, wasn't that explanation enough? A metallic snicking sound came from the kitchen. "Your toast is done," he added.
"Aagh!"
He more heard than saw John stomp off to the kitchen, and let his eyes slide shut again since they seemed to really like that. He drew the robe closer around him as one of those chill waves came over him.
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The Science of Seduction